Category: SUFFERING & TRIBULATION

  • I seem destined to suffer every possible mood, to gain experience in all directions.

    Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
    Søren Kierkegaard

  • There is not much to be gained in this world: privation and suffering fill it, and for those who have avoided these, boredom lurks at every corner.

    —Arthur Schopenhauer, ‘Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life’

    In the Presence of Schopenhauer
    Michel Houellebecq

  • From The Screwtape Letters—a fictional work written from a senior demon’s perspective, advising a junior tempter.

    Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

    The Screwtape Letters
     C. S. Lewis

  • More than once, I have managed to leave my room, for if I had stayed there I could not be sure of being able to resist some sudden resolution. The street is more reassuring, you think less about yourself there,

    The Trouble With Being Born
    Emil Cioran

  • this is all inside me, this grief, and I can’t explain it, nor do I want to, to anyone.

    The House by the Sea: A Journal
    May Sarton

  • C. S. Lewis said it best: “We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”

    Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely
    Lysa TerKeurst

  • There seems no reason for describing as hypocritical the short-lived piety of those whose religion fades away once they have emerged from ‘danger, necessity, or tribulation’. Why should they not have been sincere? They were desperate and they howled for help. Who wouldn’t?

    —C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

  • By enduring his tribulations with fortitude and acknowledging his Creator…a wise individual can benefit from all situations.

    —Clement of Alexandria

  • Just as a body left idle grows sickly and unattractive, exercise and labor make it healthy and attractive. The same applies to the soul: like iron left unused, it rusts, but when active, it shines brightly. Adversity keeps the soul in motion, just as arts perish without activity. Adverse circumstances stir the soul to action; without them, it would languish.

    —St. John Chrysostom

  • God dwells in those who have abhorred the world, and even themselves, and who have carried the cross. He feeds their souls with a joy that enriches them and makes them grow noticeably. Among those who accept this celestial joy are a few to whom God reveals His heavenly secrets. He also shows them their celestial positions while they are still in the body. Such people have boldness before Him and He gives them all that they ask for. They are gifted with talents and help people. In every generation, some people have reached that status. And the coming generations will continue to have examples of such people, not only among men, but also among women. Each one of them will be an example to his or her generation and condemn it, because these people struggled until they became perfect.

    —St. Anthony the Great